Gaston LeGume
Gaston LeGume (simply known as Gaston) is the main antagonist of Disney's 30th full-length animated feature film Beauty and the Beast (which is based on the 1756 French fairytale of the same name by the late Jeanne-Marie Leprince de Beaumont), and its 2017 live action adaptation of the same name. He is also one of the supporting antagonists in Mickey's House of Villains. He is a treacherous, chauvinistic, egotistical, deceptive and arrogant hunter from Belle's village, who was after her hand in marriage by any means necessary (regardless what she thinks about his offer). He is the Beast's arch-nemesis. In the original 1991 film, he was voiced by Richard White. In the musical, he was portrayed by Burke Moses. In the 2017 live action film, he was portrayed by Luke Evans, who previously played Owen Shaw in the Fast & Furious franchise. Personality Gaston initially happens to be a handsome and muscular hunter, and he certainly likes to brag of his abilities toward others for pleasure. However, beneath his charming looks is an extremely rude, impatient, manipulative and narcissistic person who is willing to appeal to his own ego by any means necessary. He is very conservative and narrow-minded to the extent that he disapproves intellectualism as he regards ideas as "dangerous pastimes"; he is also extremely misogynistic and lascivious, as he believes that women's sole purpose in life is to serve and obey men. Because of his charming looks, he is well-respected in the village as he was able to rouse up a mob to help him kill the Beast, although it was clear that he cared nothing for the villagers in general as he was using them all as pawns to justify his own needs. He is also shown to be completely lustful and provocative towards Belle, as he plans to marry her because of her beautiful looks as opposed to her nonconformist and unconventional personality. Even when Belle made it clear that she does not want to be with Gaston (with LeFou pointing out that the other women in the village are quite fond of Gaston), the latter still wants to marry Belle to satisfy his own ego, proving to be quite regardless of her feelings or anyone else's. He even feels extremely possessive and jealous after learning that Belle has feelings for the Beast, which only incites him in hunting down the Beast so that he can have Belle for himself. He is also very abusive, insulting, vituperative, uncomplimentary and argumentative towards LeFou and his buddies, as he would subject them to pain and suffering whenever things go wrong (even if it is not their fault). Despite his anti-intellectualism, Gaston is also very intelligent and knowledgeable, as he can come up with clever plans to get what he wants, such as throwing Belle's father Maurice into the local asylum in order to blackmail Belle into marriage, as well as manipulating the villagers into helping him kill the Beast in case his plan would fail. In spite of his intelligence, Gaston can also be quite spontaneous and impulsive, as shown when he tried to grope Belle by menacingly cornering her announcing "Say you'll marry me.", before attempting to kiss her, which forced a disgusted Belle to throw him out of her house in retaliation. In addition, he is extremely cunning, reckless and passionate, as shown during the climax when he took his chance to fatally attack the Beast without assessing any perilous risks, which ultimately led to his own demise. Beauty and the Beast (1991 Original) Meeting Belle Gaston is the local hero of a small French village at an unknown point in French history. He owns a large tavern where he and the villagers drink and talk. Inside, there is a large portrait of himself along with "trophies" from his hunt consisting mostly of animal antlers. He also says he eats five dozen eggs every morning to help make him "roughly the size of a barge". He first appears in the film shooting down a waterfowl headed south with perfect accuracy (implying that he had just returned from a hunting trip) and declaring his intent to marry Belle after acknowledging from LeFou of his popularity with all of the women in the village. He then started pursuing Belle throughout the village as she returns home after buying a book from the local bookstore. Their meeting starts off well, but Gaston's sexist remarks about women reading and thinking drive Belle away from him and she goes home, leaving him disappointed. In addition, after learning that Belle was going to aid her father Maurice, Gaston scolded LeFou for mocking Maurice (although it was implied that he mostly did that in an attempt to impress Belle rather than out of any genuine concern for Maurice). However, after an explosion occurs inside Belle's house, Gaston and Lefou both begin to laugh as Belle rushes to check on her father. Asking for a Wedding The next day, Gaston organizes a wedding outside Belle's cottage in an attempt to "surprise" her, complete with various decorations, a priest, and a wedding cake. He forces his way into the cottage and attempts to strong-arm her into marrying him, again making sexist remarks about women and housewives (he even envisions the home they would live in as a "rustic" hunting lodge, with his latest kill roasting over the fire and Belle massaging his feet while their children — six or seven boys — play on the floor with their dogs). While he attempts to corner Belle in an attempt to kiss her, she manages to open the door that he has pinned her against, rejecting his proposal. This causes him to lose his balance and fly headfirst into a large mud puddle (complete with cattail plants) in front of Belle's cottage. When asked by Lefou how it went, Gaston is humiliated and furiously storms off, but not before vowing to make Belle his wife regardless of her refusal and throwing LeFou into the mud. Getting his Praise Later, during a snowstorm, LeFou leads the villagers in the tavern to sing a song about Gaston's greatness to cheer him up after his failed proposal. Maurice suddenly interrupts and warns the villagers about a "monstrous" Beast who has locked up Belle as a prisoner in the tower of his castle. Thinking that Maurice is talking nonsense, the villagers throw him out of the tavern, which made Gaston realize that he can use Maurice's outrageous claim to his advantage. In a surprising display of animalistic cunning, he bribes Monsieur D'Arque (the owner of the local asylum) to throw Maurice into the asylum in order to pressure Belle into marrying him. Though D'Arque states that Maurice's claims and his odd inventions do not make him very dangerous, he is willing to accept the bribe because he liked the despicable aspect of the plot. However, just before Gaston and LeFou barge into Belle and Maurice's cottage, Maurice left for the castle on his own. Gaston orders LeFou to stay outside the cottage and wait for their return. Concocting his Plan When Belle and Maurice eventually return to the cottage, LeFou immediately informs Gaston, and he sets his plan into motion. With the villagers gathered outside the house, D'Arque has his men drag Maurice towards their carriage, while Gaston makes Belle his offer, he will clear up the "misunderstanding" if she marries him. Horrified and disgusted, Belle refuses and instead proves her father's claims of the Beast's existence by using a magic mirror that the Beast had given her, causing all of the villagers (including Gaston) to realize that Maurice was telling the truth. Following Maurice's release, Gaston grows more frustrated and shocked that his plan has failed, and becomes increasingly jealous when Belle begins referring to the Beast as kind and gentle (since he let her go to help Maurice and gave her the magic mirror to remember him by). Realizing that she prefers a "monster" over himself, Gaston refers to the Beast with this insult, to which Belle furiously retorts back by saying that Gaston is the real monster for his despicable plot. In his jealousy and pride, Gaston angrily snaps out by snatching the mirror from Belle and convincing the villagers that the Beast is a threat to the village that must be brought down immediately by playing off their fear of monsters. Belle furiously tries to stop this, but Gaston has her and Maurice locked in the basement to keep them from warning the Beast. He then leads a lynch mob to attack the Beast's castle and leave no one alive while declaring that he himself is to take down the Beast. However, the castle servants formed a defensive attack, leaving the rioters to fight back. Rather than helping out his fellow rioters, Gaston instead betrays them by leaving them to their fate and manages to get past the servants, as they were too busy fighting the villagers that they didn't notice him making his way up the stairs and proceeding to kill the beast. The battle ends with the violent rioters fleeing away in defeat thanks to the castle servants' enchanted forms. Despite the loss of the villagers, Gaston confronts the Beast alone in the West Wing, where he fires an arrow into him, tosses him out of the window onto a lower section of the roof and taunts him. The Beast doesn't respond back as he lost his will to live since Belle's departure, so Gaston uses a castle statue as a makeshift club to try to kill the Beast. However, the Beast regains his will when he witnessed Belle returning to the castle with her father (as they had escaped from the basement with help from Chip, who stowed away with them). A terrified Belle begs Gaston to spare the Beast, but Gaston ignores her, though the Beast defends himself by viciously fighting back against Gaston with all of his strength and ferocity. Final Battle and Death Though roughly even with his adversary, Gaston soon learns that he cannot rely on brute strength alone to kill the Beast, and instead begins taunting him over his ugly and grotesque exterior and love for Belle. Gaston even pushed the final button by claiming that Belle is his to take and no one else's, but this immediately backfires as the Beast snaps out and head-butts Gaston in the chest. The furious Beast then gets Gaston at his mercy by holding him above the castle roof by the throat, threatening to drop him into the deep castle moat for the trouble he caused. With his life at stake, Gaston abandons his pride and pathetically begs the Beast not to hurt him by claiming that he will do anything for him. At first, the Beast initially attempts to ignore Gaston's pleas, but realizes that he ought to be better due to his genuine love for Belle. Seeing that Gaston is nothing more than a reflection of what he would've become as a cruel and aggressive monster, the Beast reluctantly spares Gaston by ordering him to leave the castle and never return. However, when Gaston sees the Beast embracing Belle on the castle balcony, his hatred and envy arises again. Rather than leaving the castle, Gaston instead climbs onto the balcony and stabs the Beast in the back with a knife. The Beast swings his arm backwards at Gaston as he roars in pain, which Gaston tries to dodge, but unfortunately he loses his balance and drops his knife below the castle. As both he and the Beast are on the verge of falling, Belle saves the Beast by grabbing onto his collar and helping him up to safety, whereas Gaston plunges into the deep moat below as he fearfully screams to his death. Despite laying a fatal stab on the Beast, Gaston would permanently die alone that night; just as the Beast nearly succumbed to his wounds, Belle confessed her love for him just before the last petal of the enchanted rose that kept him bound to his beast form fell, breaking the spell and reviving the Beast. This also allows the Beast and the castle servants to transform back to their human forms, much to their joyful delight. Beauty and the Beast (2017 Remake) Meeting Belle Gaston appeared in the 2017 remake, portrayed by Luke Evans. However, in this film, Gaston is portrayed as a former army captain of the French Royal Army prior to his career as a hunter due to a portrait of him standing over fallen soldiers in the tavern. It is also implied that this incarnation of Gaston is a much darker portrayal than in the original, as he is far more manipulative and sociopathic in nature. Just like his animated counterpart, Gaston is authoritative, well-liked, and respected in the village — this time for his previous war heroics against the Portuguese. He still aims to have Belle as his wife. Asking for a Wedding At first, he attempts to woo Belle to get her approval for marriage many times, but she respectfully turns him down due to his inappropriate and offensive behavior. Gaston then warns Belle that she will end up being in the streets as a beggar if she doesn't marry him, but she still refuses by saying that she's not that simple to hang out with, much to his dismay. Getting his Praise Eventually, in the local tavern, Gaston gets cheered up by LeFou and the villagers following his failed attempts to woo Belle, right before Belle's father Maurice arrives and exclaims that Belle has been taken prisoner by the Beast (the son of a wicked king) in his castle. The villagers instantly laugh at this as they find Maurice to be downright insane (due to a spell cast by an enchantress that erases all of the townsfolk's memories of the castle), but Gaston decides to tag along, in hopes of getting Maurice's approval for Belle's hand in marriage. However, as they stroke into the woods with LeFou, Gaston tires himself of Maurice's story and reveals his true intentions, which incited a furious Maurice to refuse Gaston's proposal. In retaliation, Gaston punches Maurice before tying him up in a tree, intending to leave him to die of winter exposure and be fed by the wolves (despite LeFou's objections), so that Belle would be alone for Gaston himself to grasp on. However, Maurice ends up being saved and nursed back to health by the local hermit named Agathe before returning back to the village. Concocting his Plan As Gaston returns to his tavern, he is shocked to see that Maurice has returned alive and is now accusing him for his attempted murder. However, Gaston uses his charisma to convince the villagers that Maurice is insane and must be locked up in the local asylum (even secretly silencing an uneasy LeFou from testifying against him and convincing everyone that Agathe is untrustworthy). To that end, Gaston gets the villagers to torment Maurice before having the local asylum owner Monsieur D'Arque in escorting Maurice away, in hopes of blackmailing Belle into marrying him. However, Belle arrives back to the village and foils this by revealing the Beast's existence with the magic mirror that latter given to her, making the townsfolk realize that Maurice was telling the truth. Realizing now that he would be exposed of his true colors and that Belle has feelings for the Beast (as the latter saved her from the wolves and let her go to help Maurice), Gaston angrily lashes out by stealing the magic mirror and using the villagers' fear of monsters and sorcery to manipulate them into helping him kill the Beast, much to Belle and Maurice's horror. Final Battle and Death After having Monsieur D'Arque to lock up Belle and Maurice in the asylum carriage and keep them on watch, Gaston leads the villagers to assault the Beast's Castle, which forced the castle servants to fight back against the villagers. During the battle, Maurice frees himself and Belle before allowing the latter to head to the castle while Gaston betrays the villagers by leaving them to their fates, and even using LeFou as a human shield before leaving him for dead and escaping from the fight unharmed and unnoticed, which incited an outraged LeFou to side up with the servants. As the villagers flee away in humiliation and defeat, Gaston heads over to the West Wing, where he finally finds the Beast sulking (as the latter lost his will to live after letting Belle go). Taking the opportunity, Gaston shoots the Beast before he taunts him by claiming that Belle sent him over to kill him. However, Belle arrives to the rescue by breaking Gaston's arrows, throwing away his gun and briefly shoving him off the balcony into the roof, demanding him to stop. Undeterred by Belle's intervention, Gaston angrily refuses and instead swears to mount the Beast's head in his tavern wall and force Belle to marry him. However, the Beast regains his will after witnessing Belle's return, realizing that Gaston had deceived him. As such, the Beast proceeds to attack Gaston, instigating a hostile confrontation between the two. After a brief fight, the Beast finally overpowers Gaston and grabs him by the neck, preparing to drop him onto the castle floor for the trouble he caused. With his life at stake, Gaston abandons his pride and begs the Beast for mercy. Initially ignoring his opponent, the Beast reluctantly obliges by coldly telling Gaston that he is not a monster. Shoving Gaston away from his sight, the Beast furiously orders him to leave the castle before climbing back on the castle balcony to reunite with Belle. In that moment, however, Gaston finds his gun and fatally shoots the Beast twice from a footbridge, much to Belle's distraught. However, Gaston's victory is short-lived when the footbridge breaks apart (due to the curse slowly crumbling the castle as the Beast succumbs to his wounds), leaving Gaston to fall screaming to his death in the castle floor below. Despite putting fatal shots onto the Beast, Gaston's death proved to be in vain as Belle's expression of her love for the deceased Beast inspired an arriving Agathe (who is revealed to be the enchantress responsible for placing the curse) to revive the Beast before transforming him and his servants back to normal, much to their delight. This also allows the castle and the townsfolk's memories to be restored as several villagers recognize some of the servants as their long-lost relatives before reuniting with them. Other Appearance Beauty and the Beast (musical) In the musical, Gaston's role remains the same as in the movie. Unlike in the film, however, Gaston is hinted to be extracurricular and adulterous in nature, as he states to the Bimbettes that his "rendezvouses" with them will continue after he marries Belle, implying that his belief of marriage is based on ownership rather than of love and affection. Gaston also gave Belle an unwanted kiss when she refuses his proposal again as her father is being taken away by D'Arque, resulting a furious Belle to slap him in the face before proving Maurice's sanity with the magic mirror. Also, during the fight against the Beast, Gaston arrogantly claimed that Belle sent him over to kill the Beast. However, Belle's return to the castle made the Beast realize that what Gaston said is a lie. House of Mouse Despite his death in the movie, Gaston has gained a recurring role on House of Mouse as a guest character, once again voiced by Richard White. His most notable appearance, in the episode "Daisy's Debut", had a running gag in which he frequently injected himself into other people's conversations to say that "No one verbs like Gaston!" This gag would later go through the entire series and would become a memorable catchphrase for Gaston, as well as becoming something of an internet meme. Notable examples of this are when Daisy compliments Ariel's singing voice. He walks by and says "No one sings like Gaston!". Another one is when Timon and Pumbaa are making a face in a spoon. Gaston leans over and says "No one makes faces in spoons like Gaston!" with an annoyed Timon answering back, "Actually, no one asked the opinion of Gaston!". He also overhears Goofy complementing Mickey and Minnie on their performance after Daisy pretended to break her leg so that Minnie could perform, saying that he should pretend to break his leg to help Mickey with Gaston misunderstanding and saying "No one breaks their leg like Gaston!" He then goes off screen and a tremendous crash is heard leaving Goofy and Daisy stunned, which is assumed that he literally tried to break his own leg by injuring himself. In the episode "Halloween With Hades", he eats one of the Queen's poisoned apples, saying "No one eats candied apples like Gaston!", and falling into the Sleeping Death, to which Daisy says "and now no one needs a wake-up kiss like Gaston". Gaston was one of the many villains to join the takeover orchestrated by Jafar, Captain Hook, Ursula, Cruella De Vil, and Hades in Mickey's House of Villains. Once Upon a Time Gaston is featured in the ABC series in a very minor role played by Sage Brocklebank. Here, he was engaged to Belle through an arranged marriage, but just like the film, she did not love him because she found him quite "shallow". Unlike his Disney counterpart, he appears to be more noble, focused, and dependable, as shown when he expressed concern for Belle's agreement to go with Rumpelstiltskin and when she refused his marriage proposal. He attempted to reclaim her from Rumpelstiltskin regardless but was transformed into a rose and given as a gift to Belle. Descendants Gaston was revived, and it was also revealed that he had 2 twin sons, who he named after himself (which is not surprising); their names are Gaston Jr. and Gaston the Third, but his two sons have not inherited his obsession with girls. He also has a third son named Gil, who appeared in Descendants 2 as a supporting antagonist. Reception Gaston is considered one of Disney's most popular villains. He is ranked #11 in an official poll, and the Nostalgia Critic placed him as the 5th best Disney villain, citing him as being different from most other Disney villains in that he was not evil from the start. Fans on the Internet often jokingly idolize him similar to how the townspeople do in the movie, giving birth to the "No one (X'') like Gaston" meme, and the "Gaston" song is a very popular source for YouTube Poop in particular. Relationships Gaston LeGume/Relationships Gallery Gaston LeGume/Gallery Trivia * In early drafts, he was known as Gaston LeGume; his original last name came from the French word "legume", which means "vegetable" in French. * Gaston was created for the film and does not appear in the original Disney fairytale based the film on. In fact, Beauty's sisters (who were cut from the film) are the antagonists of the original fairytale. ** Gaston was instead directly inspired by an antagonist alongside Belle's siblings in Jean Cocteau's 1946 fantasy film adaptation of the original story, named "Avenant", who is a friend of Belle's brother. At the end of the film, he is punished by the Roman goddess Diana to take on the form of the Beast when Belle and the Beast profess their love for each other. * He is ranked #11 in the Top 30 Disney Villains. * Gaston was going to be voiced by Rupert Everett, the same actor who also played Doctor Claw in the 1999 live action film adaptation of ''Inspector Gadget by Walt Disney Pictures, and voiced Prince Charming in the two DreamWorks films Shrek 2 and Shrek the Third. However, Everett was denied because he did not sound arrogant enough, something he would later keep in mind when voicing Prince Charming. * The animators researched high school and college jock stereotypes to create Gaston's menacing and arrogant mannerisms. * Gaston acts like a liberal foil to the Beast, as they are both egotistical men who want to have Belle for selfish reasons (the Beast wants Belle to help break his curse while Gaston wants her as his trophy wife). However, the Beast proves himself to be capable of change, compassion and courage as he is willing to ensure Belle's happiness and safety (such as saving her from a wolf pack, giving her a library, and letting her go to help her father), which allowed him to earn her love to break his curse. Gaston, on the other hand, refuses to change his ways out of his own arrogance and prefers to use dirty tricks to get what he wants, making himself far more evil than the Beast. In fact, Gaston can be seen as representing the sort of person that the Beast would have almost ended up becoming like if he had never met the Enchantress and Belle. * Gaston was not present in Kingdom Hearts II, despite being the main antagonist of Beauty and the Beast. Xaldin, a member of Organization XIII, serves as this world's main antagonist and reprises the role of Forte. ** However, Gaston finally debuted in the Kingdom Hearts series in Kingdom Hearts chi. * Originally, Gaston was going to say to The Beast: "It's over Beast! Time to die!". However, this was changed, because it was slightly out of character, as Gaston is attempting to kill the Beast so that he can have Belle for himself. ** When he says "Belle is mine!", Gaston instead syncs his lips to "Time to die!", implying that the filmmakers changed the line late in development. * In two mockbusters of the Disney version of The Hunchback of Notre Dame, namely the Golden Films version and The Secret of the Hunchback, the respective main villains are clearly based off Gaston, especially the Golden Films version. * Though Gaston persuaded the villagers to hunt the Beast by lying that he was a threat to the entire village (even though the Beast only left his castle twice to rescue Belle from a wolf pack and a lake of thin ice), Gaston ultimately decided to deal with the Beast himself, likely due to seeing him as a rival for Belle's affections and the villagers would potentially discover the Beast's peaceful nature if they discovered him before Gaston. * During his fall off the castle, skulls can briefly be seen in the pupils of his eyes, firmly implying he did not survive the fall. This can be seen in the Gallery page. * During the production of the 1991 film, there were several alternative versions to Gaston's death: ** After wounding the Beast, Gaston fell from the castle into the woods, where he has survived with a broken leg. However, he is confronted by several wolves who previously pursued Maurice and Belle. Without hesitation, the wolves close in on Gaston and mauled him to death. This scene was removed, but was later reused for the death of Scar in The Lion King (the wolves were replaced by Shenzi, Banzai, and Ed, and the Hyena Clan). ** Another alternative version of his death was for Gaston to lay multiple stabbings on the Beast and commit suicide by falling to his death laughing maniacally, as he feels that no one else would have Belle if he cannot have her for himself, but not before he lashes out at Belle for ruining his pride and preferring the Beast over him. However, this was edited out since it was too dark, rewritten to have Gaston lose his footing after stabbing the Beast and only requiring one stab to finish him off. * Before Prince Hans from Frozen who is confirmed to be 23 years old, Gaston was the youngest major Disney villain to date, as most believe him to be around 25 years old. * In the 2011 Youtube comedy series called The Frollo Show, Gaston is the deuteragonist and is Frollo's best friend. Ironically, he is portrayed as rather heroic, though otherwise, he is similar to personality to his Disney counterpart. * Gaston's supervising animator is Andreas Deja. * Gaston is set to appear Disney's Heroes: Battle Mode game, as playable hero, despise being a villain, this trait follow by Emperor Zurg, Maleficent, Scar, Hades, and Ursula, who had already appear in the game. * Gaston is the first Disney villain to have two completely different songs. 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